Marriage and Baby prep

So this week in class it has been very eye opening for me. We talked about the importance of making a good wedding and a good marriage. For the wedding it is not just about the reception. The reception isn’t even really necessary. The purpose of the reception is having the community or family except the new couple. They are generally more expensive than they ever should be. You should not go into debt for it! I think that you can have a nice reception without having it be expensive. That has always been my goal and now I have research to back me up. The other important thing that we talked about is how to make the decisions about what colors and food should you have. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is this is an opportunity to make decisions as a couple. This is the first time that the couple would have the opportunity to make decisions together that will impact their lives. It should be less about what the parents want and more about what the couple wants. It really doesn’t matter what they decide but it is important to make the decision together. This is the opportunity to blend together their two families and make a new one of their own. Planning the wedding is an important bonding opportunity for the couple. Usually the wife plans the whole wedding but that is a bad choice because then the couple misses out working together and learning to make decisions as a couple. The wedding is the beginning of a new life together and the point is to start it off right. You start off right by working together from the beginning. Taking every opportunity to learn and grow closer together.

Now when the first baby comes it changes things. What can happen is that marriage satisfaction can go down when the first baby comes around. But it doesn’t have to. The thing to do is to make sure that each spouse feels involved before, during and after the birth of the baby. What can happen, is that the husband can feel abandoned by the wife and left out as she takes care of the baby. But that doesn’t have to happen. Both parents can be involved and grow closer together with each child instead of apart. The key is to continue to communicate and work tougher on everything. As a couple continues to do what they have been doing in working together then when changes come, no matter what they are, they will be able to work through them and come out better for it.

I’m no expert on the subject because I am neither married not a mother but as we discussed the topic in class it just made sense to me. I have a better understanding of what I would like to do in a marriage both in preparation and during marriage. I know that it takes a lot of work but it is completely worth it. There is nothing that you can’t work through if you want.

Love and Dating

So I have always thought that I would fall in love with my future husband when I found him. But here’s the thing, what does “falling in love” mean? In class this week we explored the different kinds of love. For me I realized that I was looking at current and future relationships all wrong. “One does not simply walk into to Mordor” I mean fall in love. The true deep kind of love that I am looking for doesn’t happen at first site. The kind of love I want to have in a relationship with a spouse is deep and abiding and can change for good over time. There were four types of love we talked about and the best kind of love that everyone should want is the combination of all four. All of them come from Greek. The first one is Storge. This is affection found between parent and child. Why on earth would you want to feel that way about a spouse? Well let’s think about it. It’s not so much that you look at them as a child or parent but you would literally do anything to help them. You purpose in their live is to help them be better. I do not have children and I cannot fully explain this deep kind of love. The next one is Philia. This is the love that exists between friends. There is a saying that says, “Love is being married to your best friend.” I love that idea of marrying a best friend. A friend who is always there for you and you can always be there for them. It’s just so wonderful. Another one is Eros. This is the love that most people talk about when they think of falling in love. This is love that can be sexually driven. It can also be called romantic love. Which is important in a relationship between spouses but not the only thing. The last is Agape. This is the love that most people define as charity. That love for everyone and anyone whether you know them or not. This is the love that inspires people to serve others with no thought of themselves. Which is absolutely important in a marriage. Selflessness.

Now that I’ve talked about love, I want to talk about dating. Most people when they think of dating they really are thinking about the word courtship. There is a difference. Courtship is when you become serious and are thinking about the possibility that this person could be your mate. Whereas dating is a casual exploration of the choices for a mate. Dating should be looked at less seriously in the world today. It is a really good idea to just go on dates with a lot of people and even a couple with one person before you move into the courtship side of things. I feel like my generation is scared of dates. We all have this attitude of “going on one date means I have to marry them.” Which is completely ridiculous. But that is what most people are thinking when they hear the word date. Dating is still a little bit scary for me but it’s becoming less so. I have changed the way that I look at it. I have made a goal to just have fun and go on lots of date until I find someone that works really well with me and we go on more dates until we move into courtship and then for me that is when the physical affection will begin. I feel like while dating it is more about building a good friendship then expressing physical attraction. When you get more serious and into the courtship phase I feel like that is when physical affection can start. That is just based off of my experiences and those around me.

It’s just interesting to think about. How do you love? How can you improve or strengthen your love? Is dating really that scary? Can I just have fun and make friends while dating? Yes!!! And in my opinion it is the better option. 

Troublesome Taboo

This week in class has brought up some very touchy subjects. Subjects that the world and society don’t want to talk about. Two really big ones; the roles that women and men play, the difference and similarities between them and then same gender attraction. Now I am no expert on either of these subjects but I have learned a lot this week in class. I have found that I have become more sympathetic and kind toward those who think or feel different then I do. I have also become more rooted in my own belief.

So are men and women basically the same? What one can do the other can do just as well? I don’t think so. During the women’s revolution society was fighting very strongly to have equality between men and women. On something there must be equality. Like wages and opportunities. But I do not believe that women can do everything just and well as a man can. Neither can a man do everything just as well as a women. We are different and have different strengths for a reason. We are meant to complement each other not compete against each other. With that said, we as individual should learn and gain new skills that will help us be better no matter what our gender is. I feel very strongly that everyone should have the opportunity to do anything that they would like without being discriminated against. That is what equality means to me.

Now for same gender attraction. I do not believe that people are born that way. I do believe that the feelings are very real but that the person has the choice to act upon those feelings or not. Society very much wants people to believe that it is a condition that someone is born into with no choice and that we should just accept it. But there is research that says they have not found anything that indicates that it is biologically related. Also society is trying very hard to make sure that research like that is not done or published. Which is just so said. I have come to realized that people who struggle with same gender attraction have a higher rate of depression. They are more miserable than other people; although they try their best to make it seem like they are happy. We watched this video for class about four gentleman who struggled with unwanted feelings of same gender attraction. All four of them were able to overcome those feelings and they all said that they were so much happier than they had ever been before. One of the men said that he had just broken up with his girlfriend and even though it was really hard and he was really sad, it was not sadness and depression to the extent that he felt before while he was acting on his same gender attraction feelings. Based on the experiences of these four men I have come to realize more and more that wickedness and having a disregard to the laws and commandments of God never makes a person happy. Ever! With that said I see people who struggle with same gender attraction in a different way than I did before. I feel like they are just like everyone else trying to find happiness and acceptance but looking in the wrong places. We need to reach out in love and understanding not disapproval and hate. Think about it. Don’t we all want to be loved and accepted? No one likes feeling left out. This doesn’t mean that we have to accept their actions that we don’t agree with but we can be kind about it. Kindness goes a long way and is the best way.

Family Culture

Have you ever felt out of place? Like you didn’t belong? Most of the time when I feel this way it is because I don’t feel like I fit in with the people that I am around. Like they all know something that I don’t know. It’s an interesting feeling. It comes from differences in cultures or classes.

I never thought that in a marriage that this difference could cause a problem. But the other night I had a dream. I learned two things from this dream. First, I was thinking way to much about my homework and therefore it incorporated itself into my dream and second what it would be like to date someone who was from a different class then I was. I would consider myself from the middle class. I had the things that I needed and sometime the things that I wanted. In my dream this gentleman asked me to accompany him to this ball. Before the ball, I joined him for dinner with his family. It was a very formal event and not at all like my own family dinners. After the dinner he told me to go and talk to his mother. So I did. His mother then proceeded to tell me how to improve my looks to better “fit in” with the people I was with. In the dream it was very hurtful what she said I needed to “improve” upon and I realized that this guy was not worth my time because he didn’t like me for who I was. He didn’t like that I didn’t have “manners” and wasn’t up to his standards. It’s a good thing that this was a dream because I was not happy about being treated that way. But it got me thinking.

Everyone comes from a different culture. I’m not even just talking about geographical cultures but more of a family culture. Each person is unique in how they were raised and in what morals they were taught to cherish. It was really interesting to see the difference between the students in my class. For intense, we talked about when people open Christmas presents. Some people have the family tradition of opening presents on Christmas Eve and that is when they have their big celebrations. Others have it on Christmas day. It was also interesting to see how the married students in my class changed their traditions when they got married because their spouse celebrated things differently than they did. It’s something that I have never really thought about.

What traditions do you have? How have they effected your life? How have they dictated the choices you made and make? I realize more and more that nobody, even within my own family, thinks quite the same way as I do. I also have realized that the family traditions that I hold dear are extremely different from ones that others hold dear. Someday when I get married, I’m going to be more aware of how to blend my culture with my spouse’s culture and form a new culture that makes us both happy. One culture is not necessarily better then another. There is good to be found in most cultures and what we should do is take the good from each and make a better one that fits us perfectly.

Family Systems

Something that I found most interesting this week in my studies was the fact that families are a system. Each family member impacts and effects the other family members. It is a system kind of like a machine. When one part of the machine is broken then the whole machine is affected by it and might even stop working altogether. Also something else that effects the family is the way heritage whether good or bad that was left for them. Children learn many things from their parents consciously and subconsciously. The way that parents treat each other effects how the child will most likely treat their future spouse. It is really fascinating how interconnected the family is. Everything that happens in someone’s “personal” life effects their family whether or not they like it.

I have seen this work in my own family. The decisions that I make effect my family, the ones that I live with and the ones that I don’t live with. Like the decision that I made to change my major. That of course will affect my future family but it impact my current family as well. When I was trying to decide what I wanted to go into, I talked to my parents and two of my older brothers. They all gave me good advice and shared with me their experiences when they were picking their majors. It helped me to make my decision. That is just a simple example of how or decisions and life effect our families lives as well.

It’s interesting to think that we really will never be alone or be able to make a decision that will not affect somebody we know. We cannot be completely an individual. It’s impossible. God made it that way. I know that the greatest happiness that I have ever found or will find will be in a family. Working together. Laughing together. Loving together. Growing. Learning. Finding ourselves as part of a whole. We are not meant to be alone.